Marker light Detail Question regarding NH EP5

If I understand your question, you want to light the Class Lights green on the front and the Marker Lights red on the rear.  On a bidirectional locomotive like the EP5 -- which is double-ended -- Green Class lights would be displayed on the leading end and red Marker Lights on the rear, no matter if the official front end was or was not the leading end.  Therefore, on O gauge locomotives factory-equipped with this feature, the LED's change color when the engine moves in reverse.

since I cannot add the bi directional leds , ( or maybe I can I need to look into it) Assuming I will not be able to , would you suggest a way that would be correct?  Or is Bi Directional lighting the only way

Also does anyone have pics of their engines to send as reference

Why can't you add bi-color markers?  Is this a PS/2 locomotive, or earlier?  Does it have directional headlights?

John,

GGG told me that the board would need to be flashed with code for the board.  THis engine has no marker lights just the molded spots where they should be.  I might be overthinking this upgrade.  I might just need to abandon the marker light idea.

The class lights wouldn't be lit for a normally scheduled train, anyway.  Only an extra(white,) or for sectioned train (green,) except for the last section. Red wouldn't normally be used (rear) unless the locomotive was travelling light or in pusher service.

Rusty

So , what would the light be for this model.  or not to put any in

Since this is a PS/2, you could easily tap the markers off the directional headlights and get directional LED markers easily.  Some three pin common anode RED/GREEN LED's and a few resistors and you're on your way.

The class lights depend totally on the particular train.  Being non-illuminated would be just as accurate as putting something in.  Most of the class lights back then had fresnel lenses and would be difficult to see in daylight anyway unless your viewing angle was right.

To make them look better than just molded bumps, the bumps can be drilled out and a clear lens installed.

Rusty

Of course, the customer may simply want lights and not really care about the technical correctness of the lighting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYYEdgOsHig

I watched this video, it looks like the red and green are always lit.

ca anyone who owns one shed any light

also John, how many LEDs can MTH's board handle, if I were to add two red and two green to the two already on the circuit so that there are four leds on each the rear and front marker.  will it damage the board?

For bi-directional LED's, I'd do them as I described off the headlight circuit, that would be no problem.

If you want to wire them from the marker outputs, each will at least handle two colored LED's in series, because that's the way they're used.  Are you wanting to put four marker/class LED's on each end?

Originally Posted by bbsfdl60:

For two green on the front and two red on the back, it's no problem as long as the sound file activates the Marker outputs.

If it's a RailKing and doesn't have the markers activated, you can use the Premier sound file from the 20-5531-1 unit, there is a 5V and 3V sound file.  The only issue might be the scale speeds being off, but I think that should not be the case.

John,

I am going to try somthing that Jeff at MTH suggested.  I think it goes with your idea.

Since this one uses 4 led spots on each end. I will add a resistor in line from the headlight output to the LEDs.  I will add two more LED's to each so that in the end, there is one GOW and 4 LED's coming off the headlight (F and R) output.  If you have any schematic drawings or other suggestions I am all ears. ( Eyes in this case)

Where are the four markers on each end?  Are you saying you're putting two LED's in each of the marker bumps?

If you use four LED's on each headlight circuit, I'd put two in series with a 270 ohm resistor, then the other two the same with with another resistor.  Do the same for the other set of markers.  I'd power the front ones from the rear headlight and the rear ones from the front headlight.  Since the headlights will go off on the rear, that will at least leave the markers on for the dark side.

Keep in mind that the purple (P5V) lead that is the common to all the bulbs is actually the positive side of the power to the lamps.

Bill, To be clear I thought you were talking about MTH models that have Bi-Directional LEDs.  Those that do, use a flash code to control them.

If your just talking about adding bi-dir to an engine, John's method can work, though you have an issue of only one direction light on at a time.

So I think what you are going to do is let the FWD light control return for the front LED Green side and the Rear LED Red side, while the REV light controls the Rear Green and FWD Red.

Your just going to have a lot of wires crossing the shell.  Not sure why you just don't add the Green and Red like the production.   G

I believe the New Heaven electric locomotives had front and rear facing lights that be changed between white, green, and red as already described. But what was the color of the side facing light?  Marker lights on the New Heaven shown yellow to the side except when the train was on a siding in the clear, when the yellow was shown to the rear.  Was the side facing light on the locomotives yellow?  Was it extinguished when on the leading end of the locomotive?  I have always wondered why a red light would be shown to the side, unless it was to indicate to wayside employees that the rear of the train had passed. 

I've done bi-color, (bi-polar),LED's on a Pennsy  E-8 upgrade a few years ago.  At the time TAS had a kit.  It required a reversing voltage polarity, which was available via the Smoke unit wiring on a TMCC board, not being used for smoke.  The 5754 follow A unit of the set require reverse wiring since it runs backwards in the pair.

GGG, yeah I was talking about MTH,  THis model has 4 marker light molded holes.  The premier model as 4 LED's on each cab.  I was thinking of just using the four supplied to out two red and two green,  but since it is a double cab engine, I was trying to make it so that the marker lights could be correct in either direction.  What confuses me is the use of 4 markers on each side.  But again, this might be a case of me overthinking this upgrade

Bill,  I know it is MTH, but there is a distinction between basic MTH engine with marker, and Premier Engine with Bi-directional markers.  The GG-1 with bi-dir markers have a special circuit board to control the polarity.  The PS-2 board has special flash coding to control the marker circuit board.

TMCC is easier to do, because of the AC wave form and how the R2LC handles the light output.  Atlas and some Lionel engines have LED circuit boards and simple cross wiring to allow a FWD headlight to turn on rear RED markers.  It would be easy to allow this to turn on FWD green too.

PS-2/3 is pure DC pulsed to get the correct voltage.  Your going to have to create a logic circuit, or do some manual wiring logic to get what your after.  That is going to require a lot of wire going between the front of the shell and the rear.  If it doesn't have spring light contacts, that will also require extra plugs to get the shell off.  G

Might be making this more work than its worth, thanks for the info ...

I agree there will be more wires between the front and rear.  I use #30 wire-wrap wire for lighting like this and hot glue it out of the line of fire in the shell.  It's not really that many wires between locations if you power the directional markers from the headlights.  You need the opposite direction headlight at the other end of the shell.  The common is already there, that should be it for the end-to-end wiring.  This will do either the simple single color directional marker/class lights or the bi-color ones.

If the headlights are on the stalks from the frame, you will need a 3 position connector to the shell to bring the headlights and common into the shell.